


Träumerei

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Inner Dialogue, POV First Person, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5655922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren reminisces on a murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Träumerei

_They fuck you up, your mum and dad._  
 _They may not mean to, but they do._  
 _They fill you with the faults they had_  
 _And add some extra, just for you._  
  
_But they were fucked up in their turn_  
 _By fools in old-style hats and coats,_  
 _Who half the time were soppy-stern_  
 _And half at one another's throats._  
  
_Man hands on misery to man._  
 _It deepens like a coastal shelf._  
 _Get out as early as you can,_  
 _And don't have any kids yourself._

\- Phillip Larkin,  _This Be The Verse_

He  _made_  me do it. Oh, not in the sense that he impaled himself on my lightsaber and sprang off the bridge to his death, although he might as well have.

What did he expect? After years of blood and fury and hate, after everything we did to each other, a few hugs and kisses would sort everything out and I’d come trotting back to the light like some misled baby? He was so  _stupid,_ so naïve, especially considering his reputation. I still can’t believe it was that easy. My father, Han Solo, the cynical, hardened smuggler, he who trusted no one, walked up to  _me_  unarmed, like a beast to slaughter, and talked to me like I was a lost boy who simply ran away from home.

He had no excuse, as I have no excuse. He knew who I am, what I’ve done – murderer of old men and children, hunter of Jedi, drenched in the blood of the innocent and the helpless up to my neck. He should have known better than to trust me. After all, he’s the reason I am the way I am. He  _knew_  that. He  _chose_  to face me knowing that, speaking of home and family and love.

If he cared so much about me, why did he send me away like I was an embarrassment? Why did they not step in when they saw what I was becoming?  Uncle Luke, Father, Mother – they must have seen the signs. They let him near me. They didn’t take me away, or talk to me, or warn me that Snoke wasn’t to be trusted. I trusted him, and why shouldn’t I have? He was more of a father to me than my real father, pathetic as that sounds. He saw my potential. He understood my abilities and taught me how to use them. He wasn’t ashamed of me or my heritage. He encouraged my questions. He inflamed my ambition and my pride. He was there when I called. He said I could be great, as Grandfather was great, if I only let ice fill my veins and the darkness I was conceived in consume me. So I did. It was easier than I thought it would be.  

And Father, always busy, never _there_ , either arguing with his politician wife or scamming his way across the galaxy with that walking carpet of his, didn’t step in until it was far too late for him to stop it, when I might,  _might_ , have accepted his apologies.

My parents blamed Grandfather for my inner darkness. I remember sitting hunched in dark corners, listening to the hushed conversations they had when they thought I wasn’t there to hear. I was moody, like Anakin was. I kept to myself, like Anakin did. I got into fistfights with other children, like Anakin did. I never heard him suggest once that he or Mother were even partially to blame. And so, when I wanted to learn more about this grandfather who I had so much in common with and who they saw in me, it was my fault.

And after all that, Father expected me to forgive him? He honestly thought I’m that much of a fool, that I’d be welcomed back with open arms after everything I’ve done? I’d be strung up the moment I was taken home as a prisoner, or spend the rest of my life rotting in a grimy cell. I’ve come much too far to die like that. And if it wasn’t the Resistance, I’d be struck down by my own. The First Order does not deal kindly with traitors, as I well know. I am not naïve enough to think I couldn’t be replaced. I made my decision long ago, as he made his, and as Grandfather Vader did before both of us.

Snoke said that Han and Luke were afraid of me, what I have the potential to become. My father may have been be right about other things, even I suspect that sometimes, but I still think that’s the truth. It explains a lot. I suppose I took it on myself to give them something to  _really_  be scared of.

Did Han know, deep down, that I would be his death? Is that why he couldn’t look me in the eye when they sent me away? Could he smell the stench of rotting corpses clinging to me, or see flecks of gore on my smile?

I will admit, privately, that I am not as strong as I would like. I am raw, fierce, jagged around the edges. My impulses rule me. I am weak at times. But I have potential. My bloodline is strong, I am learning fast, and my teacher sees power in me. Why else would he have chosen me? Father said he will dispose of me, but he taught me more than Uncle Luke ever did. His lessons were far more useful than the wishy-washy moral platitudes of the Jedi Order. He taught me how to be sly in brain and cold in heart, to embrace who and what I am, and to throw away anything and everything that cuts off that potential. It’s like cutting off an infected finger, he said. It hurts, but it will poison you if you let it be.

I trust no one, as Han trusted no one. We had that much in common, but the son surpassed the father. My chosen allies are as trustworthy as a swarm of piranha beetles. They are useful and reliable enough, but I would never dare consider them friends. It keeps me on edge. He let his guard down - and look where love and trust got him!

But I do, grudgingly, mind, have to admire the nerve of him, calling me by name and facing me unarmed, in the presence of my men. That was why I didn’t strike him down on the spot as I should have. Even I had almost forgotten the sound of my own name - I never use it, I never answer to it, and of my inner circle only Snoke knows who I was before I became the Supreme Leader’s dark knight, his right hand. Hux suspects, but he doesn’t know the full story. My soldiers, Phasma included, only know me as Kylo Ren. I prefer it that way. As far as I was concerned until very recently, Ben Solo was just another one of the students I killed when I sealed my oath to Snoke in my classmates’ blood, and as dead to me as the rest. With a future ahead of me, why look to the past? 

Even then, as I listened, both feigning and interested, a part of me knew he was only appealing to me because I was a threat. He certainly never said things like that before Kylo Ren, when I was still scrawny, silent Ben Solo. He ignored me when I was nothing, and when I wanted to be something he was ashamed of me. He has only himself to blame that I found other places for the support he failed to give. People that we ignore and take for granted have a way of coming back to haunt us. I’m surprised he didn’t see that coming.

Even then, he didn’t see fit to apologize, to take responsibility for the fact that he  _drove_  me to this. He  _made_  me into this. He and Mother, dropping me off with an uncle I barely knew because I was too much like Grandfather Vader. Children are curious, and as if that was a bad thing! Is it wrong to be proud of one's ancestors, one's bloodline? I am strong in the Force, like Grandfather. I am ambitious, like Grandfather. I am bold and act before I think, like Grandfather. But I can be  _better_ , as Snoke told me. Grandfather, as much as I admire him, wavered, questioned, turned.  _I_  did not. I did what I had to, as I always have. 

But part of me wanted to accept his hug, to fall to my knees in shame and self-loathing. I  _almost_  said yes. I hate to admit this even in private, and I would never say this to anyone (I can only imagine what Hux would do if he knew this), but my tears were not deception on my part. Thankfully, my more sensible half prevailed. Part of me even now is appalled at what I did next. I hoped to kill that part of myself with him, but it still lives, whispering in my ear. I, who killed children, who tortured and murdered with no shame, and whose clothes and skin reek of blood, am ashamed of killing a grown man whose only gift to me was making me what I am today. I have cut down the defenseless before me and ordered the deaths of countless more without a moment’s remorse. Why does this single crime, a drop in the ocean of blood licking at my feet, bother me more than the others? Even I was shocked when I drove my blade through flesh and organs and bone, his bright eyes dimmed, and I could smell the stink of burning meat.  

Did Grandfather feel that way when he killed Ben Kenobi, my namesake? They were friends, the stories say, old war comrades and more than that. Brothers, almost. Did he hate himself for what he did, as I do? Did he regret having to do it? What kept him going afterward? Father didn’t have that kind of friendship or understanding with me, he never did. I don’t understand, then, why I hung there, dreamlike, processing what I had done, making myself a clear target like a fool.

All things considered, I expected something more from him in his last moments. I expected my name to be on his dying breath, for him to curse my treachery as he fell,  for him to lash out at me in his dying spasms and try to pull me over the edge with him, for him to do  _some_ thing. It’s what I would have done. It's only appropriate, though, for him to disappoint me in death as much as he did in life.

He touched me, rough hands stroking my face. I saw no hate or even fear in his eyes. My stomach clenched as he did it. In spite of what I did, in spite of everything between us, he touched me as if I was still a gurgling baby on his knee rather than a grown man who ran him through. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes as I shoved the body aside, and my mind was a blank until a rush of pain from the Wookiee’s wretched gun filled the hollow part in me with rage.

I passed Snoke's test, I proved myself. I showed myself and my master that I was Grandfather's worthy successor. By all rights I should be proud of what I have done. I want to be, but I can't. 

I have been punished for my moment of hesitation. The wound Father left is open and gaping. It refuses to heal, against my master’s words. If anything, it grows worse. I can feel the sting with every step. It doesn’t matter. My scars serve to remind me of the price of weakness.  

Next time, I will learn from my mistakes. I am cunning and I am growing ever stronger as my soul grows darker. I will not hesitate again. There is no room in the galaxy for the foolish and the weak. My heart is stone and ice runs in my veins. It would have to for me to do what I did. Next time, Uncle Luke, when the time comes and we meet again, I will show you no mercy.


End file.
